All Star Baseball Board Game History

There's always been a part of me that wanted to know how fantasy sports came to be. Today, fantasy sports have become a huge money-making industry with the advent of the internet that has allowed computers to do the scoring for fantasy owners.

The origin of fantasy sports dates back to a fantasy baseball board game created during World War II when All Star Baseball was manufactured in 1941. Cadaco-Ellis was the manufacturer for the game and former Major League Baseball player Ethan Allen was the designer.

The game play was quite simple and targetted younger audiences. ASB had two spinners that were located at the top of the baseball board. Circular player cards, which were based on their abilities and statistics determining the size between the lines of the numbers, were inserted in the spinner that showed the result of each at-bat. Originally, a hole was placed in the cards which fit into a spinner. But by the 1960s, a plastic holder was used to prevent cards from tearing easily by inserting them in the top of holder while centering it on the spinner.

Peg holes were at each base of the board which were used if runners reached safely. If a runner(s) was on base, the pitching team then spun the alternate spinner that displayed zones which indicated the result of the runner advancing on a given play. The game had no pitching or fielding cards to use against batters which made the game more appealing to kids because the older audience preferred more realism. Pitcher cards did come with the game, and had batting stats on them even though pitching did not factor into the results of the game itself.

The earlier versions of the game had 40 player cards but expanded to 63 for later sets.

The original scoring chart for ASB looked like this:
1 = Home run
2 = Ground out and double play if runner is on first base
3 = Error by fielder; runner reaches base
4 = Fly out and runner(s) advance safely if any are on base
5 = Triple
6 = Ground out, and runner(s) advance safely
7 = Single and runner(s) advance a base safely
8 = Fly out and runner on third scores on sacrifice and others hold
9 = Base on balls or walk
10 = Strikeout
11 = Double
12 = Ground out and runners advance on force play
13 = Single and the runner(s) advance two bases on the play
14 = Fly out and runners cannot advance
No. 3 was eventually replaced with another fly out.

The early versions of the game had a mix of Hall of Fame players along with the current stars of the game until the 1980s. This was when the growing number of current players had more licensing rights to use their names with them having to sign an agreement form allowing ASB to use their batting statistics. Some players did decline the use of their stats, and none of them were ever compensated when they signed the agreement.

By 1995, the game was able to garner a MLBPA license which increased the cost of production despite it giving the cards a more designer-friendly look. This caused a cease in annual production of the game and the internet also contributed to the stoppage of production. Commemorative sets have been issued since that time. In some parts of their history, Cadaco sent out older player cards by mail as well.

ASB is recognized as one of the fifty most influential American board games of all-time. It is one of the two top-selling baseball board games of all-time along with Strat-o-Matic, their long-time competitor. It was the best-selling board game at one time, and is the only one of it's kind to have been sold at retail stores for over 50 years. Today, many past and present fans can find older editions and/or player cards of the game on eBay, where it has regained some of it's popularity.

Personally, I received two ASB games for Christmas as a kid, and I remember very vividly having the 1988 set which had popular players like Mike Schmidt and Nolan Ryan as well as my two favorites back then in Andre Dawson and Ryne Sandberg. I still have the Dawson and Sandberg cards in good condition, too.

Sources: boardgamegeek.com, cadaco.com/family-fun